The Venice Biennale Is High Stakes. James Cohan Gallery Is All In

James Cohan Gallery, a mid-sized New York gallery, is representing four artists in the 61st Venice Biennale's central exhibition, "In Minor Keys," curated by the late Koyo Kouoh. The artists are Ranti Bam, Tuan Andrew Nguyen, Kennedy Yanko, and Yinka Shonibare (whose Guest Artists Space Foundation is also participating). This marks a breakthrough for the gallery, which has more artists in the central exhibition than any of the four mega-galleries—Gagosian, Pace, David Zwirner, and Hauser & Wirth—none of which have as many. The gallery is investing heavily in production, logistics, travel, and events, including a luncheon at the St. Regis Hotel co-hosted with Salon 94 and Esther Schipper, and a dinner thrown by collector Pamela Joyner for Yanko.

Éliane Radigue, Electronic Music Pioneer, Dies at 94

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Éliane Radigue, a pioneering French composer and electronic music visionary, has died at the age of 94 in Paris. A student of musique concrète founders Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry, Radigue became renowned for her meditative, long-form compositions created primarily on the ARP 2500 modular synthesizer. Her work, deeply influenced by Tibetan Buddhism, focused on the subtle, sculptural qualities of sound and "barely perceptible" sonic shifts.

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Yinka Shonibare, the London-based British-Nigerian artist, established the nonprofit Guest Artists Space (G.A.S.) Foundation in Nigeria in 2019 to address the lack of artistic infrastructure in Lagos. The foundation, which grew out of his earlier Guest Projects initiative in London, operates two facilities: the G.A.S. Lagos Residency and the G.A.S. Farm House in Ijebu, Ogun State. It hosts residencies and programs supporting artists and curators from Africa and beyond, and launched the G.A.S. Fellowship Award in 2022. The article highlights the experience of 2024 fellow Amanda Iheme, an architecture photographer who expanded her practice during her residency. Shonibare funds the foundation partly from his own art sales, and the piece notes his recent major exhibitions, including at the Venice Biennale and Serpentine Galleries, as well as his current show at Fondation H in Madagascar.

Notes from New York: The World in a Convex Mirror

The article reviews the sixth edition of MoMA PS1's quinquennial survey 'Greater New York 2026,' which coincides with the institution's 50th anniversary. It highlights works by artists such as Covey Gong, Win McCarthy, Mekko Harjo, and Sophie Friedman-Pappas, noting how the exhibition's themeless structure and use of reflective surfaces create a hall of distorted reflections. The show includes 53 emerging and midcareer artists, mostly millennials, and is accompanied by a block party and gala rather than a dedicated commemorative exhibition like FORTY (2016).

How Josh Kline Wrote the Essay That the Art World Can’t Stop Talking About

Artist Josh Kline has sparked intense debate across the New York art world with his viral essay, "New York Real Estate and the Ruin of American Art," published in the journal October. The text serves as a scathing critique of the current state of the American art industry, diagnosing it as "sick" due to skyrocketing real estate costs, systemic power imbalances, and a market that has become an unsustainable "conveyor belt" of commercial painting. Kline argues that the economic pressures of post-pandemic New York have made the city a hostile environment for experimental and conceptual practices.

art collector questionnaire geoff snack rare books design

Geoff Snack, a brand strategy director and paper dealer, shares his approach to collecting rare books, design objects, and paper ephemera in an interview with CULTURED. His collection includes a signed copy of Andy Warhol's "Exposures," works by Barbara Kruger, Lawrence Weiner, and Chris Burden, and flyers from the 1980s New York art scene. Snack sources his finds through flea markets, Craigslist, and instinctive hunts, and runs the consultancy Wrong Answer and co-organizes the book fair Available Works at WSA in downtown New York.

New York Galleries: Openings and Closings (03/09-03/15)

New York City’s gallery scene is set for a major wave of activity between March 10 and March 15, 2026, with dozens of new exhibitions opening across Manhattan. High-profile showcases include Sam Gilliam and Chuck Close at Pace Gallery, Maria Lassnig at Petzel, and Paul Chan at Greene Naftali. The week features a diverse range of media, from David Armstrong’s portraiture at Artists Space to Bat-Ami Rivlin’s industrial installations at Management.

art venice faustin linyekula the galeazze project dance

Congolese choreographer Faustin Linyekula is staging "The Galeazze Project," a performance commissioned by the Venice-based nonprofit Scuola Piccola Zattere (SPZ) in the 16th-century Galeazze shipyard complex, which has been inaccessible since World War II and never open to the public. The performance, a collateral event of the 2026 Venice Biennale, brings up to 500 people into the 32,291-square-foot open-air ruin for two nights, featuring local students, musicians from the Venetian label Cosmogram, and trumpeter Heru Shabaka-Ra, with a soundtrack composed collaboratively.

art new york gallery guide spring

Cultured's spring gallery guide for New York highlights a curated selection of exhibitions across the city, with standout shows including Carol Bove's sculptural installation at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Joan Semmel's retrospective at the Jewish Museum, Jessi Reaves's furniture-based works at the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the group show "Afterlives: Contemporary Art in the Byzantine Crypt" at the Metropolitan Museum. The guide also notes exhibitions by Paul Chan, Nicola Tyson, Doron Langberg, and Yuval Pudik that are closing soon, and extends coverage to shows in Philadelphia and Warsaw.

At the Venice Biennale, Koyo Kouoh’s ‘In Minor Keys’ Looks Deeply at Lush Gardens and a Scarred Earth

Koyo Kouoh's exhibition 'In Minor Keys' at the 2026 Venice Biennale centers on the practices of two deceased artists, Issa Samb and Beverly Buchanan, whose ways of thinking animate the show through dedicated 'Shrines' in the Central Pavilion. The exhibition also draws on Marcel Duchamp's legacy, featuring works by over a dozen contemporary artists including Akinbode Akinbiyi, Guadalupe Rosales, Natalia Lassalle-Morillo, Guadalupe Maravilla, Sofía Gallisá Muriente, and Avi Mograbi, whose installation 'Between a River and a Sea' contrasts pre-1948 business directories with a 2023 Gaza Yellow Pages. A section called 'The Schools' highlights artist-run spaces such as Denniston Hill, Guest Artists Space (G.A.S.) Foundation, blaxTARLINES, and the Nairobi Contemporary Art Institute.

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The Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh has announced the artist list for its 2026 Carnegie International exhibition. The largest edition to date features 61 artists from around the world, including the Indigenous Argentinian collective Silät, Indian artist Sanchayan Ghosh, and Peruvian painter Arturo Kameya. The show, titled "If the word we," will open on May 2 and includes 36 new commissions, organized by curators Ryan Inouye, Liz Park, and Danielle A. Jackson.

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Art-world consultants Chen & Lampert present a satirical quiz for contemporary art curators who came of age in the mid-2000s and now face the challenges of middle age—mortgages, school-age children, and dwindling energy for the nightlife that once fueled their careers. The quiz poses ten multiple-choice questions testing whether a curator can stay relevant without partying every night, touching on topics like referencing artists in talks, responding to young artists, and keeping up with art news and trends.

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Yasunao Tone, a composer, theorist, and artist associated with the Fluxus movement, has died at age 90. Artists Space, which hosted his first US retrospective in 2023, announced his passing due to age-related complications. Tone was known for experimental music that used unorthodox methods such as altering instruments with ice, scratching CDs to create white noise, and producing graphic scores that resembled abstract artworks. He co-founded Group Ongaku in 1961, collaborated with key figures like Nam June Paik, George Maciunas, and Yoko Ono, and later explored digital corruption of audio files and AI. His work influenced experimental music and sound art, with a 2023 profile in AnOther Magazine stating he "changed music forever."

David Armstrong “Portraits” at Artists Space, New York

Artists Space in New York is presenting the first US survey of photographer David Armstrong (1954–2014), titled "Portraits." The exhibition brings together over 90 photographs that showcase Armstrong's experimental approach to portraiture, transforming landscapes, still lifes, and fashion imagery into explorations of intimacy, desire, and loss.

art best new york show reviews

The article presents a speed round of one-sentence reviews for current art exhibitions in New York's Chelsea and West Village neighborhoods, curated by the Critics' Table. Featured shows include Édouard Vuillard's "Early Interiors" at Skarstedt, Ralph Lemon's "From Out of Space" at Paula Cooper, "Art (by) Dealers" at White Columns, Nicola Tyson's "NEED" at Petzel, Anne Truitt's "Waterleaf" at Matthew Marks, Paul Chan's "Automa Mon Amour" at Greene Naftali, and a Robert Mapplethorpe exhibition at Gladstone, all running through April 2025.

In Light of Innocence Raúl de Nieves

Raúl de Nieves's first solo institutional show in New York City, titled "In Light of Innocence," has opened at Pioneer Works. The exhibition transforms the Main Hall into an immersive, cathedral-like environment featuring 50 faux stained glass panels, a monumental lightbox mural, and works that blend Catholic, Mexican folkloric, and tarot symbolism. The artist uses humble materials like paper, wood, glue, tape, and colored acetate to create kaleidoscopic, light-responsive installations that shift throughout the day.

New documentary bringing Metro Pictures gallery to the screen

A new feature documentary, *Pictures of Pictures: The Metro Years*, is being made about the influential New York gallery Metro Pictures. Founded in 1980 by Janelle Reiring and Helene Winer, the gallery represented key artists of the Pictures Generation, including Cindy Sherman, Robert Longo, Louise Lawler, and Walter Robinson. The film, directed by Sophie Chahinian, explores the gallery's four-decade run, its founding principles of integrity and curatorial care over profit, and the personal stories of its artists and founders.

Three key takeaways from Lagos’s newest African art symposium

The second week of November 2025 marks Lagos Art Week, featuring the 10th edition of Art X Lagos, West Africa’s leading international art fair, and the 15th edition of Lagos Photo Festival, now a biennial. A new symposium, Re: assemblages, hosted by the Alliance Française de Lagos and organized by the Guest Artists Space and Yinka Shonibare Foundations, brought together cultural practitioners from across Africa and the diaspora to discuss African and Afro-diasporic art archives. Key takeaways include the importance of archives as living tools for shaping the future, concerns about restricted access to the archives of late curators Okwui Enwezor and Bisi Silva, and the need for restitution efforts to incorporate African knowledge systems and language, not just the return of objects.

As Art X Lagos opens, Nigeria's next generation of artists emerges

Art X Lagos, the art fair founded by Tokini Peterside-Schwebig in 2016, opens for its tenth edition from November 6-9, anchoring Lagos Art Week. The fair features a group show at Kó Art Space spotlighting artists inspired by the Oshogbo School, a 1960s Nigerian movement, and Tiwani Contemporary presents sculptural works by Lagos-based designer Nifemi Marcus-Bello, his first exhibition in Nigeria. The Guest Artists Space (GAS) Foundation, established by British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare, adds talks, workshops, and cultural exchange programs, contributing to a vibrant, sprawling art week across the city.

Summer shows include multiple exhibitions viewing nature through 2 artists’ work - Portland Press Herald

Multiple Maine museums are collaborating this summer to present simultaneous exhibitions of two mid-career gestural painters, Nicole Wittenberg and Ann Craven, whose work deeply engages with nature and landscape painting. Wittenberg's shows include "A Sailboat in the Moonlight" at the Ogunquit Museum of American Art (through July 20), "Nicole Wittenberg: Cheek to Cheek" at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art (through Sept. 14), and a Paris exhibition at the Fondation Le Corbusier. Craven's exhibitions span the Farnsworth Art Museum ("Ann Craven: Painted Time," through Jan. 4, 2026), the Portland Museum of Art ("Spotlight: Ann Craven," May 14 to Sept. 14), and Bowdoin College Museum of Art (starting May 22).

The Carnegie International Looks Back at Itself

The 58th Carnegie International at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh looks back at its own 130-year history, featuring a gallery dedicated to past iterations. The exhibition includes Chris Ofili's "The Adoration of Captain Shit and the Legend of the Black Stars" (1998), which was originally shown in the 53rd International in 1999, the same year Ofili's more notorious "The Holy Virgin Mary" sparked controversy at the Brooklyn Museum. The article reviews how the current iteration captures the excitement of earlier exhibitions while providing commentary on authoritarianism and militarism.

Julia Heyward “Miracles in Reverse” at Kunstverein Nürnberg

Kunstverein Nürnberg – Albrecht Dürer Gesellschaft is presenting "Miracles in Reverse," the first institutional solo exhibition in Europe by American artist Julia Heyward (born 1949). Heyward was a central figure in New York's downtown art scene during the 1970s and 1980s, and her work anticipated major developments in art history. The exhibition showcases her distinctive practice developed over five decades.

‘I like pushing boundaries’: Yinka Shonibare on his landmark art show in Madagascar

British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare has opened his first major solo exhibition in Africa at Fondation H in Antananarivo, Madagascar. The show, which occupies the foundation's 2,200-square-meter historic building, features installations drawn from his catalog, including his signature use of Ankara print fabrics. The exhibition marks a significant milestone for Shonibare, who had previously attempted to mount a large solo show in Lagos but was thwarted by infrastructure limitations.

Michael Asher at Artists Space review

Artists Space in New York is hosting a posthumous survey of Michael Asher, the influential conceptual artist who died in 2012. Curated by Jay Sanders and Stella Cilman, the exhibition focuses not on Asher's well-known site-specific interventions—which by their nature cannot be recreated—but on the material residues they left behind: magazines, advertisements, radio works, postcards, T-shirts, and other ephemera. A key artifact is a copy of Tom Marioni's 1975 magazine *Vision*, in which Asher glued two facing pages together, effectively making himself disappear between contributions by Doug Wheeler and Bruce Nauman. The show spans forty-five years of projects, presenting these objects as physical remainders of Asher's practice.

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Claudia Gould, who left the Jewish Museum in New York in 2023 after a twelve-year tenure, has been appointed director of the Shaker Museum in Chatham, New York. The museum, which holds one of the world's most significant collections of Shaker material culture, is building a new $30 million flagship space designed by Selldorf Architects, known for recent work on the Frick Collection. Gould expressed excitement about building a museum from the ground up, a challenge she described as different from restructuring an existing organization.

An Abandoned Shipyard in Venice Is Getting a New Life Thanks to This Congolese Choreographer

Congolese choreographer Faustin Linyekula is staging "The Galeazze Project," a performance in a 16th-century shipyard complex in Venice that has been inaccessible since World War II and never open to the public. Commissioned by the nonprofit Scuola Piccola Zattere, the work will bring up to 500 people into the 32,291-square-foot open-air ruin for two nights during the 2026 Venice Biennale preview week. The rental fee from the performance will help stabilize and restore the floors of the historic Galeazze site.

parties ruba katrib lawrence kumpf hosting

Blank Forms celebrated its ninth anniversary with performances by Dez Andrés, Douglas Sherman, and 7038634357 at the Ukrainian National Home in the East Village. The article, written by Ruba Katrib and Lawrence Kumpf, offers a personal glimpse into their New York apartment, filled with books, records, art from friends, and a curated sound system, alongside recipes and anecdotes about hosting artists, musicians, and curators for dinners and listening sessions.

paul leong ugly painting young collectors

Paul Leong, a Hawaii-born finance executive and co-chair of Friends at the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, discusses his provocative art collection in an interview with Cultured. Leong favors challenging, conceptual works that he describes as "ugly painting," including pieces by Merlin Carpenter, Jana Euler, Matt Browning, Claire Fontaine, Michael E. Smith, Rayan Yasmineh, and Stefan Tcherepnin. He credits art advisor Thea Westreich with teaching him to prioritize meaning over appearance, and recounts the hard-won acquisition of a Jana Euler work from a 2020 show at Artists Space in New York after persistent engagement with her galleries.

Julia Heyward “Voices of Many Voices” at Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster

The Westfälischer Kunstverein in Münster is presenting "Voices of Many Voices," a significant exhibition dedicated to the pioneering work of Julia Heyward. The show highlights Heyward’s multidisciplinary practice, which emerged from the 1970s New York performance scene, blending vocal experimentation, monologues, and complex multimedia orchestrations. By juxtaposing music, image, and language, the exhibition captures the artist's unique ability to navigate emotional extremes and the "simultaneity of opposites."

Koyo Kouoh’s Venice Biennale Looks to Ancient Wisdom to Mend a Fractured Present

Koyo Kouoh's Venice Biennale, titled after ancient wisdom, opens with a focus on healing and historical reimagination. The exhibition features works by artists such as Alexa Kumiko Hatanaka, Khaled Sabsabi, Daniel Lind-Ramos, Guadalupe Maravilla, Kennedy Yanko, and Ayrson Heráclito, alongside a strong emphasis on artist-led schools and institutions like Denniston Hill, blaxTARLINES KUMASI, and RAW Material Company. During the opening, the Koyo Kouoh Foundation was announced, set to launch in Basel to support Pan-African cultural infrastructure. The show includes Refaat Alareer's poem "If I Must Die" and addresses political realities, blending spiritual, ecological, and technological themes to explore collective care and restoration.